Re: Lessons from the AU model

[Alastair Johnson <aj () sneep net>]

Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
> Some claim that metering is 50% of cost in the telco industry, and I 
> have no reason to doubt that. Staying out of metering saves money on all 
> levels, less complex equipment, less supportcalls, less hassle with 
> billing.

I have to agree with this, although the figure is trending downwards. 
Certainly one situation I have seen with ~$200mm in broadband metering 
revenue was spending $80m-ish a year on the various platforms that 
managed metering/rating/billing and the ops cost that went with it.

The flipside is that I can see products (BRAS/BNG and their associated 
control plane solutions) being developed, launched, and marketed right 
now that make this much easier to manage.  If the telephants adopt this, 
then it will reduce their billing cost substantially - although it 
adjusts (disrupts?) their traditional messy OSS/BSS.

> I am also hesitant regarding billing when a person is being DDOS:ed. How 
> is that handled in .AU? I can see billing being done on outgoing traffic 
> from the customer because they can control that, but what about 
> incoming, the customer has only partial control over that.

In my experience (NZ & AU) inbound DDoS attacks are usually waived by 
the service provider.  This may not apply with all ISPs, but when I 
drove an ISP we did try and protect customers from that form of bill-shock.

aj.